OT: 35 years since the Miracle on Ice

Submitted by PeteM on

Today is 35 years, exactly, since the greatest upset I've ever seen -- the US/Soviet hockey game in the 1980 olympics. The Soviets had defeated a NHL all star team featuring 20 future hall of famers a year before.

For those on the site old enough to have been around in 1980 what are your memories?  I have two.  One is that the game was tape delayed so it could be shown in primetime, but in that pre-internet era no one knew what had happened.  In Detroit, though, the ABC local affiliate spilled the beans about the outcome during a preview for nightly newscast in the 3rd period  and got deluged with angry calls.  My other is going outside just after the game ended around 10 pm because I was too wound up to go to sleep, and finding 5-6 other kids on my street in the same boat, jumping up and down and high fiving.

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xtramelanin

February 22nd, 2015 at 7:56 AM ^

that you could get if you lived in detroit.  i think it was something like channel 42.   was with one of my brothers and my dad.   of course an unbelievable game and moment.  

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LSAClassOf2000

February 22nd, 2015 at 8:07 AM ^

I have memories of not having cable in the early 1980s, and I still remember that you could - on a clear weather day usually - get CKCO out of Sarnia or CHCH out of London. I definitely remember Channel 9 being CBET Windsor and that of course came in clear as a bell. There were probably even more than that which made appearances on the UHF band when it was a beautiful, sunny day. 

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Alton

February 22nd, 2015 at 8:46 AM ^

I'm glad you mentioned this.  The Sarnia CTV (I think) channel absolutely showed the game live, but unfortunately as hard as I tried I couldn't pull that channel in at my home in Ann Arbor. 

The way I followed the game live is that some random radio listener who lived in the northern suburbs of Detroit had called in to WJR and was narrating the last 3 minutes or so of the game over-the-air.  Of course that didn't keep me from watching it again on ABC that night, but I think a lot of people in southeast Michigan knew what was coming even before Bill Bonds spoiled it for everybody watching.

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umbig11

February 22nd, 2015 at 8:32 AM ^

They have a very different perspective of the "Miracle" than we do. I had no idea they put the Soviet team in a newly built prison in New York for their accomodations at the Olympic Village. I thought that was very ironic because they complained about being locked up in their own training camp 11 months a year without being able to see their own families. Every Soviet hockey play was a member of the Russian Army and had to sign a 25 year contract.

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JonnyHintz

February 22nd, 2015 at 9:29 AM ^

That is the trick to Soviet hockey dominance. Back then, only amateurs could play in the Olympics. No professional paid players. So what the Soviets did, was pay them with a military contract. Not a hockey contract. CSKA Moscow (The Red Army Team) was the top team in Russia as well as representing the national team. Since they were all in the Army and not paid for hockey, they qualified as amateurs. The problem I have with it is, when you're stick in training camp for hockey 11 months out of the year, you're not an army member.. That's just a fact. The only thing they had in common with the Army, was a strict (albeit different) training program, and the fact that they slept in Army Barracks. They weren't paid for their army service, they were paid to be hockey players. It was just a way for the Soviets to circumvent the rules of the time for a competitive advantage.

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Sac Fly

February 22nd, 2015 at 12:15 PM ^

Military service was mandatory, so to circumvent the rules they created the "Hockey Branch." What made them so good was sending their kids into CSKA, the state run sport program. CSKA was also used for basketball, handball and many other sports as a way for their players to start training for these events at a young age. The Soviet team had the best players in the country who had been playing together for 20+ years.

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umbig11

February 22nd, 2015 at 10:45 AM ^

it could have been 20-3 or 20-0 that day. Jimmy Craig looked horrible and I didn't think the U.S. would win one game let alone tie Sweden 2-2, beat a very good Czech team 7-3, Norway 5-1, Romania 7-2, and West Germany 4-2. Then to go on and beat the world's greatest hockey dynasty 4-3 and top it off with a win over Finland 4-2 was one hell of a run by some college kids!!!

 

Here were the Soviet scores leading up to the game:

USSR 16 Japan 0

USSR 17 Netherlands 4

USSR 8 Poland 1

USSR 4 Finland 2

USSR 6 Canada 4

USA 4 USSR 3

USSR 9 Swden 2

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Canadian

February 22nd, 2015 at 10:35 AM ^

Yes and the best part of that 30 for 30 was the fact that on American tv the Russians talked about the '72 summit series. When international hockey is brought up most Americans assume bc of 1980 the Russian/American rivalry is huge when in fact the Canadian/Russian rivalry is much much bigger.
They didn't call it North American hockey they called it Canadian hockey.

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macdaddy

February 22nd, 2015 at 12:31 PM ^

This ^^^ X 1000.

The '72 Summit Series was probably the biggest sporting event of my life. As kid in Windsor at the time I can attest to the fact that the entire country stopped functioning during this game. Everything came to a complete halt. They rolled TVs into the classrooms (unprecedented) so we could all watch. When Paul Henderson scored the series-winning goal with 0:34 left the spasm of national ecstacy was felt from St. John's to Vancouver. Indescribable. And awesome.

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west2

February 22nd, 2015 at 4:49 PM ^

I was a young fella then and a hockey player and watched all the US games.  Watching highlights I now realize what a masterful coaching job Herb Brooks did.  Some of the schemes he used were right from the soviet playbook and are considered routine concepts in todays game.  The game really turned on the late 1st period goal by Mark Johnson which was a poorly played rebound by soviet goalieTretiak that bounced right to Johnson and he deked it in the net with 1 second left in the period.  That prompted the Soviet coach to pull Tretiak for the rest of the game and put in the backup-Myschkin, a huge mistake, one that sealed the win for the USA team.   What most of us did not realize was that as much as this was the most celebrated win ever by a US olympic team it resulted in the soviets returning hone as disgraced men totally dishonored by this improbable loss.  You could see in the 30 for 30 episode the look on former soviet players faces even after all this time how painful the memories were and how it affected them. 

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west2

February 22nd, 2015 at 8:03 PM ^

From 1956 to 1988 the Soviet hockey team amassed 7 gold medals, 1 silver, and 1 bronze medal.  Coincidentally the US earned gold in both 1960 & 1980 as everyone knows. The reaction to the 1980 USSR loss to team USA was similar to Michigan fans reaction following the App State loss only on a bigger national scale.  Following the 1980 games in Lake Placid the USSR coach and a half dozen players that did not contribute up to expectation, their careers were over.  Of course the KLM line (Krutov, Larianov & Makarov), defenseman Fetisov & Kasatonov, goalie Tretiak all remained on national team and all eventually played some in the NHL.  

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umbig11

February 22nd, 2015 at 10:33 AM ^

However, watching with my family and the longer the game went on with it being close was just electric. I will never forget the countdown and celebration afterwards! The tension between the two countries politically was at an all-time high. Truly a miracle if you followed hockey. Those teams could play 30 more times and the Russians would win every one of them.

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lmgoblue1

February 22nd, 2015 at 8:53 AM ^

on a Canadian radio station while driving from Ann Arbor to Traverse City to spend the weekend with my family. No one believed me when I told them we won. My dad's friend called the local newspaper and they confirmed the victory. We drank a lot of Stoli Vodka while watching the tape delay cause we were the victors and to the victors go the spoils. That's how it was pre-internet. Just a freaking awesome memory.

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